


Your Halo Better Gleam

by NoHolds



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Future, Korrasami - Freeform, Post-Finale, blatant korrasami, mild homophobia I guess. It's sort of a darker future then most korrasami fics, mostly fluffy though, so warning for that, somehow everyone ended up bi and I don't know how it happened, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-08 20:03:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3221657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHolds/pseuds/NoHolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a hard swallow nesting in the back of your throat, because it's so beautiful, she's so beautiful, smiling shyly, eyes ablaze, and you're both so young and so scared and you've never held anything as sacred as her hands, here, in the golden light.</p><p>Korra and Asami, after the finale and in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Halo Better Gleam, Better Gleam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kora and Asami are young and in love and everything is mostly as it should be, even when other people can't see it.
> 
> (Asami)

**They’re taking pictures of the man from God/I hope his cassock’s clean/The burden of being a holy fellow’s/Your halo better gleam, better gleam.**

 

There's a hard swallow nesting in the back of your throat, because it's so beautiful, _she's_ so beautiful, smiling shyly, eyes ablaze, and you're both so young and so scared and you've never held anything as sacred as her hands, here, in the golden light.

She looks you in the eye like no one else ever did, those brilliant eyes of hers seeing deeper into you then anyone else ever had, and her face softens, and you feel your anxiety melt, feel your stomach go hot and your chest get tight and soft and, oh. This is what it feels like to fall in love.

You smile back at her and take a step, the spirit world enveloping you, and you feel her squeeze your hands, once, reverent.

You tumble into the spirit world on hands and knees, soft blue grass breaking your fall, the sun warm and the sky brilliant, the world gone Technicolor with spirit energy.

Korra falls after you, managing a little more grace, and flops onto the grass by your side, smiling in a way you can't quite read.

And this feeling in your chest- it's light and fragile, like sugar glass, all spun thin and beautiful and breakable, and when you look at her you feel like you can't breathe.

Then Korra smiles wider, and the tenderness in her eyes just about crushes you, and she bridges the gap between your bodies.

You are twenty years old, or near enough as makes no difference, and you are kissing the Avatar.

\---

Living with Korra had been strange at first, letting people assume you were just roommates, fighting over shared space and different habits,

But every time you kiss her you still feel twenty years old and fresh in love and breathless, and you love her so much sometimes you feel asthmatic, a crushing weight on your chest, an affection your body can't possibly contain.

And one morning after tripping over her unwashed laundry you'd made a chore wheel, half passive aggressive and half earnest, and when she'd seen it she'd laughed like spring and smiled like the summer sky, and you'd gone weak at the knees because you love this girl. You really do.

And the chore wheel says this week it's your turn to do the dishes.

You're humming under your breath, elbow-deep in soapy water, mind miles away.

"That's a pretty song." Korra says, and you turn to thank her and-

She's down on one knee with a ring in one hand and a necklace in the other. She's smiling _so_ brightly, and her words are church organ, enormous in the reverent silence. 

"Marry me, Asami?" 

It was never a question. Your stomach goes cavernous and you feel like you want to cry or sing or laugh or-

Or you don't know what, only that there's butterflies in your stomach and her, here, with love in her eyes, and that's enough.

Always has been.

The next day you leave the house with a ring on your finger and a betrothal necklace at your throat and the media _swarms_ you, beating at the doors of your joy with pitchforks and pointed questions.

You'd talked about this, last night, wrapped in the safety of her arms, where the world was just distant lights and the sound of cars outside your window.

Now- now it was too much, the gunshots of their questions ringing loud and close against your ears and-

You know what you have to do, take a deep breath, remember the church-footed silence, uncertain and sacred, in the moments after she'd proposed, the way you'd been together three years and suddenly every step was holy, the way she'd bumped into you standing up to tie the necklace on and your nose had bled and you'd just stood in the kitchen, arms still sudsy from the dishes, holding your nose and laughing, because you were young and in love and it had always been a little like this.

"So Miss Sato, who's the lucky fella, huh?" 

And you say "There isn't one." The reporters all stop dead, and you can practically feel their collective minds grind to a confused halt, hanging in space like stalled airplanes, and into the silence their questions have left, you say;

"I'm engaged to the Avatar." It's the first time you say it out loud and you feel schoolgirl crush, still, after all these years.

"Avatar Korra the Avatar." One of them says, blankly, and you nod and push past him because you're out of milk, and Korra is waiting for you back home, and you'd really like cereal for breakfast.

\---

There are protesters the next day. You wish, for the first time, that she wasn't the Avatar and you weren't the head of Future Industries, because then maybe people wouldn't _care_ quite so much, and the warm glow of new engagement should never be broken by hundreds of people who wish you dead.

But Korra _is_ the Avatar, and you _are_ the head of future industries, and oh, well. That's who you are. Always have been. 

You agreed to marry The Avatar as well as Korra, and so you agreed to marry this, too.

Even though it makes your stomach feel like lead when you look off your balcony, see all those people who hate you waving signs, shouting.

You wonder, idly, what you've done.

\---

They tried to kill Korra three times before your first meeting with the press, and part of you wants to beg her to stay inside, safe and sound in your arms, but that isn't who she is.

Isn't who you are, either, and the next time she heads out onto the battlefield of the streets your arm is looped through hers.

And, God, she's still beautiful. Circles under her eyes and messy hair and stress lines, and you kiss her on the street corner and feel like sunlight through stained glass, bright and airy and beautiful.

She blinks, once, and you say "I love you so much." And _she_ kisses _you_ , and you feel her smile against your mouth.

You don't let go of her hand until you are safe at home again.

\---

You're sitting in the kitchen one night, the soft yellow light of late evening painting everything gold leaf, watching Korra make dinner, the muscles in her back shifting as she chops veggies. You start to doze off, half-lidded and content with the routine of it, and after a while the rhythmic chop-chop-chop of her knife on the cutting board goes dead. She turns to you, stark confusion on her honest face.

"I can't figure it out." She says, wiping her hands.

"What?" 

"Why they hate us. Me." She says, and it's true, it's mostly her. They hate her. Besmirching the Avatar legacy. Dishonoring the founder of Republic City. 

"They want you to be perfect." You say, and her shoulders droop, and you wonder how many of them actually _know_ Korra, that half-mouthed, tooth flashing smile of hers, the way she cuts her own hair, how she looks first thing in the morning, bathed in soft early sunlight, eyes warm, love in her face.

You wonder if they'd hate her then.

You think no one could.

"But-" she says, uncertainly.

"Remember after Harmonic Convergence? How everyone hated you because you couldn't fix Republic City?"

She frowns. "Yeah, but-"

"It's the same now. You're the Avatar, so they want you to be perfect. And this,"

You hold up your ring.

"It's not perfect."

"Yes, it is." She says, and kisses you hard, hands in your hair, and your stomach goes molten, and you kiss her back, and when you break to breathe she loops her fingers through yours, looks at you with those brilliant eyes of hers, and there's such _love_ in them.

"Yes, it is," she says again, fiercely.  "Even if they can't see it."

And your chest goes tight and your face goes hot and you're young and afraid and breathlessly in love, and you lean your forehead against hers and _grin,_ and it's been three years, and you're still not sure there's anything holier then these quiet moments with her, soft and timeless, and you know you'll never hold anything as sacred as her hands, here, in the golden light.

 

 


	2. For Ink, For Ink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lin Beifong is too hard on herself and too hard on almost everyone else, as well, and she never really gave herself time to be a teenager. She does not afford her sister that luxury either.
> 
> (Lin)

**And what of all those wayward priests/The ones who like to drink/Do you suppose they swapped their blood for wine/Like you swapped yours for ink, for ink**

The noises of Republic City are hazy and muffled through your window, sounds and lights soft the way sounds and lights are filtered through glass at a time more night then morning.

You can’t sleep. So you’re already awake when the door slams open somewhere around 3am, a sloppy, gunshot of a noise in the quiet of city night.

You hear unsteady footsteps, one, two, three, and then the catching, dragging sound of someone trying to throw up on an empty stomach.

You would get out of bed to see what all the fuss is about, but you’d pushed too hard at the gym (again), and your arms are leaden and your legs feel like acid and jelly and also, really, you _know_ what all the fuss is about.

You hear Su drag herself to the bathroom, the familiar shuffle-thud of crawling body on hardwood floor, see light flood through the crack under your door as she fumbles the light on.

Then she stops to dry heave again, and, _really,_ that doesn’t sound healthy, you think you can hear a burr in the bottom of her coughs, like she’s just on the edge of a really bad chest cold.

You’re not surprised, really. Unlike you, Su doesn’t really bother to take care of herself. You hear running water, the unsteady _rattle_ of the copper pipes in your walls, and then, for a moment, silence.

The door to your shared room slides open halfway, flooding the dark with the harsh, sickly light of fluorescent bulbs in the small hours of the morning, and oh. Look what the cat dragged in.

You haven’t seen Su in a few days, and it’s not because you spend most of your waking hours training, and it’s not because you weren’t looking (though, you do, and you weren’t).

Su looks like shit and a half, hair messy, dark circles of day-old makeup and exhaustion around her eyes, face pale and clothing rumpled.

She hangs in the doorway for a moment, halo’d in the light from the hall, before hauling the door shut and staggering towards her bed, feet dragging like an alley cat who’d lost a fight.

She stops beside your bed to cough, and _yow,_ there really _is_ a chest cold brewing in there somewhere, her breaths sound bubbley, more liquid then air, and she takes the opportunity of her coughing fit to slump onto your bed, less sitting down and more collapsing with a modicum of grace.

“What am I _doing_ , Lin?” She asks, and you bite your tongue and try not to breathe too deeply.

            She smells like vodka and smoke and strange men and-

            And strange _women,_ you concede, all perfume and nicotine and bile, and your stomach turns when you picture her in their arms. You sincerely hope no one had recognized her drunk or high or kissing girls, because your mother is the chief of police, and this could _ruin_ her reputation.

“What am I _doing?_ She says, again, and she sounds so _pathetic,_ voice scraped raw by cigarettes and throwing up, that you might feel sorry for her, if you didn’t know her better.

“Completely disregarding all of your personal and social responsibilities?” You try.

“Going on three day benders and coming home hung over at 3am when your latest fuck-buddy realizes how vapid and selfish you really are?”

            Su just _sighs,_ slouching back against you. You can feel a fever coming off her skin through the thin sheets, the wet-heat of impending illness. You inch away.

“Grow up,” She says, somehow without a hint of irony, before doubling over to cough with an intensity that would scare you if you didn’t know things always came up aces for Suyin Beifong.

            And then, once her breathing is a little more even, “They’re just girls, Lin.”

            You feel your stomach twist in disgust, cold and acrid and penny-tasting.

“If people find out, you’ll ruin mom’s reputation.” Is all you can say. You’d been reading up on military and police policies, had learned about don’t ask/don’t tell last week, know what Su’s doing could push your mother out of office- public opinion is everything in this city, and the police force was already in hot water over the mob presence.

“You have to stop caring about what mom’ll think so much.” She rasps, like she’s in any sort of position to be giving advice, and then she stops again to cough, this nasty sound with a frankly concerning wet _edge_ to it, and you shove at her side, the overworked muscles in your arms groaning like steel under pressure.

“Get out of my bed.”

            Sue drags herself to the other side of the room and passes out immediately, of course, and you lie awake in the darkness for a long time, wishing you could trade the knot of concern in your chest in for a police badge in the same spot, just over your heart.

            At least that might do some good.

\---

You’re eating breakfast- toast, eggs, orange juice (and, you hate eggs, but they’re good protein, and you _need_ protein if you want to be strong enough to pass your physical), when your mom strides into the kitchen, bare feet slapping against the linoleum.

“Your sister’s sick.” She says, and you want to say “I _know,_ ” and you want to say “Where the hell where you last night, I know you heard her come in,” and you want to say “Why the _fuck_ don’t you do something about her, mom,” but this is the chief of police and you are in the police academy, and so you just nod and pour her a cup of coffee, try not to let her see how bad your arm is shaking from the gym yesterday.

She _humphs_ and takes the coffee and leaves without another word.

\---

Su ends up in the hospital with  a lung infection, and the one time you visit she’s high off isolation and fever, and she greets you with “Do you really _want_ to be a cop?”

            You tell her it’s what’s best for your family, that it’ll look good in the papers (some local rag had run a story headlined “One too Many Benders for Youngest Beifong?” and you had _torn it into pieces),_ stale words, words you’d said a hundred times that were dry and tasteless on your tongue.

            Su just _laughed_ and _laughed,_ this wild hyena of a laugh, still with the edge of infection on it, and you had left feeling junkie-jumpy, bugs under your skin, unsettled to your core.

\---

            You are sitting in a grave-quiet room, the kind of silence populated only by other people’s nervous tics, all drumming pencils and stifled coughs, waiting to be called in to write your exam.

            You’d been studying for your police exam since you were knee-high, and you kind of think you’ll ace it, but also there’s this tight spring of anxiety tied up in your throat and you feel like you can’t _breathe,_ and you can hear your heart in your ears and your stomach is absolutely _churning,_ and-

            And there’s your mother, walking through the front door like she owns the place (which, she kind of _does),_ and you know from the way her head turns that she can feel your anxious shaking from where she is.

            You want, more then anything, for her to come over and tell you it’s okay, or give you a pat on the back or a smile or _something,_ but she just keeps walking.

            And, you get that, she’s Toph-The-Chief-Of-Police right now, not Toph-Your-Mother (Though, to be honest, she’s Toph-The-Chief-Of-Police at home, too), so she can’t show favoritism, but something in your stomach still drops when she strides out of the room without a second glance and leaves you to your anxiety and the breathless not-silence of waiting rooms.

\---

As it turns out, you ace all of your exams, and they hand you your badge like life sentence, and it feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, this little bit of tin stamped with “RCPD” and the words “To protect and serve”.

            To be honest, you thought it would make you happier, but getting the badge just makes you feel a little like low tide, sort of _empty,_ and you figure the joy just hasn’t _sunk in_ yet, figure when you show the badge to your mom you’ll feel a little better about it.

            She’s not there when you get home, though, there’s just a note saying “Stakeout tonight, left pizza money, back in a few days” and a couple of crumpled ten-yuan bills.

            You _try_ not to be angry, because your mom is the chief of police, and she has more important things to think about then whether or not her eldest daughter passed her entrance exam to become a police officer, but you sort of wish the note had at least _mentioned_ it.

            Whatever, though. You snap up the money and head over to the phone to order yourself something to eat, try to ignore the empty building growing in your chest, all drafty rooms and loose timbers.

            The door _slams_ open as you’re half way through dialing the local pizza place, and Su staggers in and- Spirits, it’s noon and she’s _already_ sloppy-drunk, a dumb grin plastered on her face.

“Mom home?” She slurs, and you bite back a thousand criticisms and just pass her the note.

It takes her _way_ too long to read, but when the message finally sinks through the fog of alcohol, her grin grows bigger and she shoves you out of the way to get to the phone (She smells like someone else’s perfume, bright and floral, and you try way too hard to ignore it).

She lifts her drink-sloppy fingers to the phone and dials slowly, a look of intense concentration on her face. You wonder, briefly, where she’s been, how much she’d had to drink.

            Su’s face lights up when the person on the other end picks up, and she goes “Coleen! Hey, babe!” and your stomach knots with disgust- or at least something like it- and you leave the kitchen as fast as you can without actually running away.

            Sue’s friends start arriving at eight, flooding in on a tide of too-loud voices and alcohol and cigarette smoke, and you sit in your room and try not to feel left out because that’s _absurd,_ you don’t _want_ to be mixed in with this crowd _anyway,_ especially not now that you’re a police officer.

            You still have your badge clutched in one hand, metal cold and alien against your palm, and it feels a little malignant, like growth, like tumor, like shrapnel.

            And, absurd or not, you still feel a little left out, isolated from the too-loud laughter on the other side of your door, feel like the city outside your window at 3am, muffled, worlds away.

            Then the door slides open roughly, forced by hands made brutish with drink, and you’re on your feet with your heart in your throat and your fists raised, but- oh.

            It’ just one of Sue’s friends, some girl with too-short hair and a too-short dress, all bright makeup and sequins.

            She’s pretty, you think, this dragonfly of a girl, who giggles like champagne bubbles when she sees you.

            You are, ridiculously, ashamed of your pajamas, grungy tank top and faded flannel pants.

“You must be Lin!” She says, voice high and drunk and more exited then you think you’ve ever been.

“Hi.” You say, instead of “Get out of my room” or “What are you _doing_ here?”  You extend a hand, feel clumsy, like fingers just come in from the cold.

She grabs your hand and gives it an enthusiastic shake, and you catch her perfume, something Fire Nation, you think, all bite and spice.

            And then you look up and she’s _close,_ you can see the shock of her white teeth against painted lips, see a faint splash of freckles across her nose, and your heart is beating too fast and there’s a sort of _warmth_ in your stomach and-

            And you’re not _six,_ you pretty much _know_ what that means, and there’s disgust mixing in your stomach with that liquid-heat (heat that’s not entirely unpleasant), and you _need_ to put some distance between you and this dragonfly-girl, need to get the heady mix of alcohol and perfume our of your nose because you are a police officer and you can’t _afford_ this.

“Can I help you with something?” You ask, awkwardly, and she’s so close you can see her pupils blow wide and those white-white teeth bare in a grin and you think, inanely, _this dragonfly can bite,_ and then she’s _kissing_ you.

            It’s not fireworks, or stars, or any of the other things those romance novels Su loves makes it out to be, but when her teeth scrape against your lip you go weak in the knees, and your heart is racing in a _good_ way, and you are, in this moment, very _young_ and very _afraid,_ but when she tangles a hand in your hair and pushes her tongue into your mouth you _let_ her, because your blood is _electric,_ and-

            You pull back, eyes wide, panting, and she her lipstick is smeared and part of you _likes_ it, and you want to run or hit yourself or hit her or hit _something_ , and you are tense and you are turned-on and you are _terrified,_ and this girl just _laughs_ and slides past you to the bathroom.

You collapse against the wall feeling puppet-strings cut, a little lost, mind foggy.

            The sharp-sour ache of tears is stinging at the back of your throat, and you clench your jaw and wait for the girl to leave again and then you _cry,_ your chest aching, and you’re not sure you’ve ever _hated_ yourself quite this much, not sure you’ve ever been less deserving of your mother’s legacy then here on your hands and knees with a strange girl on your lips, choking on your tears.

            You are eighteen years old, the daughter of the chief of police, and right now you wish you were just about anyone else.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) someone please help the Beifong kids  
> b) this chapter's style is a little different because Lin is a harder person then Asami and less prone to flowery language and also  
> b) I know this chapter seems entirely unrelated to the pervious one (And there's a lot less cute Korrasami and a lot more sad, self-destructive teenagers and I am sorry for that), but the two chapters are tied together by the song I'm using and we'll get back to Korrasami eventually and this WILL all make sense later, I promise.  
> c) this is honestly new ground for me so if there's something off about it tell me, I really could use the advice.


	3. Especially From You, From You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asami means well and Korra does, too, but oceans are wide and letters are only so long and the meaning behind words can sometimes fade wrapped in stamps and envelopes, lost in the mail. 
> 
> (Korra)

**You wrote me oh so many letters/and all of them seemed true/promises look good on paper/especially from you, from you**

 

There’s always a shiver just on the edge of breaking out across your skin, always a chill in your bones, because it is so _cold_ here, you had forgotten, the harsh, blank-paper silence of it, and you haven’t really been _warm_ since you’d left Republic CIty, since Zaheer had- 

Since Zaheer.

You were sitting outside in that damn chair, the wind going right to your bones, you’d been here for two weeks and your parents had barely left you for a minute, and you’d never felt so alone as you do here, under the cold stars and the wide arctic sky.

\--- 

You remember, as a child, this kitschy souvenir Tenzin had brought you, a board painted with all these little technicolour squares. Tenzin had insisted that if you looked at it the right way it’d become a picture of Avatar Aang, you’d stared at it till your eyes crossed but never once seen the Avatar in it. 

You told everyone else you saw it, but you’d squinted at the damn thing for _hours_ an all you’d ever seen were squares. 

And you had been young, and hotheaded, and you’d been about a second away from just lighting the damn thing on fire when there, look, the Avatar’s face looking up sternly from the squares. 

You’d felt very afraid, then, though you weren’t sure why. 

\--- 

Asami wrote you a letter every week, they always got there on Wednesdays, dispelled a little of the unholy cold of the south, her beautiful looping handwriting, still a hint of her perfume, opening them was like warming your hands over a fire, stung your icy fingers but healed a little, too.

She’d always tell you you were strong, that you’d make it out okay, that you were the bravest person that she knew, her words were like stars in December sky, beautiful to look at but they shed no light, for you.

Lately, Asami had been writing about circles a lot, you think she’d been working on a new sort of gear, wheels turning themselves through the hallowed corners of her mind.

She’d been saying how everything was circular, the earth was round, history repeats itself, the Avatar is always reborn, the sun rises, the seasons change, the stars move across the sky but they always come back to where they started.

Circles.

She tells you how history repeats itself, how you were so strong once and you will be again.

You were distant with Asami once, too, let history repeat itself in the blank paper on your desk, in the empty envelopes, you feel igloo-hearted.

\---

You love Asami.

The realization was not a shock, was not icy water or light bulbs or anything of the sort. 

You had been here for almost two years, with nothing but time to think, spent a lot of sleepless nights staring out into the arctic dark, the static of pitch-black pressing against your eyes, no company but your thoughts.

And Asami had been in them often, Asami’s letters, Asami’s smile, the warmth in your chest when the mail arrived, the smell of her perfume.

And you realize it one night, in the company of the stars and the snow, and it’s a _little_ like a puzzle piece sliding into place, but mostly it is another brick on the pile of your stresses, because you know people won’t approve, and you are so _tired._

But. You love her. And it is not a bad feeling, mostly, and you finally start writing back, and you think she loves you too, maybe, and when you get her letters you feel winter-sun, still a little thin but healing, and sometimes your fondness is so _bright_ it blinds you.

And her letters are wonderful, really, she even has nice _handwriting,_ and the promises she sends across the sea are beautiful, vowing affection and happiness and sunny days to come, and you read each one until you know her words by heart, but-

But you can’t quite bring yourself to believe her, can’t imagine the sun past the horizon, can’t see yourself as you once were, no matter how many pretty words Asami writes, no matter how much she means it, no matter how much you care for her.

\---

You try to believe her. You really do. Hold her letters like holy text, try to see God in them, squint-and-cross-your-eyes and there, do you see it? The Avatar emerging from a jumble of meaningless ink.

You still could not see it. Told everyone you could, after you’d finally started writing back you’d told Asami you were feeling better, you were lying.

You had never seen the Avatar in her ink.

 Circles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little short but there wasn't much else to say.  
> The optical illusion would be something like this http://www.anopticalillusion.com/2012/07/big-ears-stereogram/   
> As always, let me know what you think, good or bad.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based pretty heavily off a song called The Wrote and the Writ, by Johnny Flynn. One of my favourite songs in the world, actually.
> 
> This fic is in second person, which I normally don't do, and it's based on a song, which I don't think I've ever done, actually.
> 
> Let me know if you life it, there may be more chapters based on the same song later.
> 
> Cheers.


End file.
